Nokia 6100 Review

Overall Rating

Good voice quality, slim design, basic features, no stupid camera and radio

keypad not as good as that on some of the other phones, no bluetooth

The Nokia 6100 is my 3rd mobile phone. Earlier I had 6610. To be honest, I had mixed feelings about 6610. I liked its user- interface, color screen, battery life, etc, but was put off by its voice quality and flimsy covers. There were instances where the guy at the other end would ask me to call from the land line. The conversation would break frequently.

At that time, the two good phones were 6610 & 6100. I chose 6610 over 6100, because of two things: 1) radio & 2) Price [it was about USD50 cheaper than 6100]. I rarely found my self using the radio, as it was not possible to carry the handsfree with me all the time. You need to connect the handsfree to the phone to listen to radio as it works as an antenna. 6610 was expensive when I bought it, but the voice quality did not justify its price. I live in India, where it is customary to change mobiles after a few months [One guy changed 15 mobiles in 3 months!]. I swapped it for the new 7250i.

The 7250i has everything that 6610 has with the addition of camera. Its other useful feature is the personal shortcuts 'Go to' feature, where you can assign the frequently used features to the upper right key. You can also view the interface in grid format, but I like the normal format. It has the zoom for camera, where you can zoom on the picture after it is stored in the gallery. As with 6610, I could not use the radio because I found it difficult to carry the handsfree with me all the time. The image quality was also not great, so I found no use of the camera, except for assigning pictures to the contact list. The voice quality was as good [as bad] as 6610. What's the use of having a phone with great features, if the guy at the other end asks you to call from a landline, as he can't hear properly? In most instances, I could hear the voice properly, but the guys at the other end had the problem, even when I made calls to the landline numbers from my mobile. Now, I made up my mind to get a phone with good voice quality. Features became secondary. So, I went to the dealer for a new phone. The dealer was surprised that I wanted to sell the 7250i [new USD 325] as it is one of the current bestsellers.


The dealer showed me the latest 6600 [USD 500, Made in Finland], which has all the current features and the other running model SE T610 [USD 270] with camera, Bluetooth, 65k color screen, etc. Some of my friends use the T610 and have complained about its low battery life and hanging. I don't know what happens when a phone hangs, but they said it hangs, especially after downloads.

I was tempted to buy the fat 6600, but then my eyes fell on the 6100, whose price had fallen to USD 270 [same as SE T610]. It has no camera or radio. It is slim and simple. The dealer told me that this piece is made in Germany, which is as good as if made in Finland [Nokia phones are made in different places like China, Hungary, Finland, Germany, etc]. I decided to go for it.

I am satisfied with it. The voice quality is good [most of the time crystal clear]. It also has the 'go to' feature that I liked in the 7250i. The volume keys on the left side are also more user friendly than those on 6610 & 7250i. I don't miss the radio and the camera [Anyway most of us use digital cameras]. The only minus point is that the keypad is not as comfortable as that on the other two, but 6100 is smaller so the trade off.

I used to like my Motorola V66 very much. Its voice quality was very good, but I had given it up for the color screen phones. Now, I am happy that after a long time I have found a phone that is equally good. Those two phones [6610 & 7250i] always reminded me of the V66.

I strongly recommend the 6100.